The following is a lesson that Harry Potter might have learned at Hogwarts. If they studied baking. And had baking related sex ed.

When a scone and a cookie love each other, sometimes they decide to have the seckts. In doing so, they create offspring: the rock cake.

Rock cakes are not common treats in the US, but are an old school tea time snack in the UK. They are made similarly to a scone, with a tinge more sweetness, and dropped into smaller rounds, making little, misshapen “rocks”, perfect for nibbling on during afternoon tea, after a typically terrible Potions lesson with Snape whilst commiserating with Hagrid. Unlike Hagrid’s truly rock-like cakes, these moist little treats are easy and delicious.

Chock full of yummy add-ins, these chocolaty rocks are worth donning your Invisibility Cape and dodging Filch (or in my house, the minions of Mrs. Norris) to sneak as a late night snack.

In a large bowl combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Combine well. Add the cold margarine, in chunks, and blend in until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. In a small bowl combine the milk, vinegar and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined. Gently add in the chocolate chips, nuts and dried fruit.

Scoop dough into tablespoon sized balls onto prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until cakes have risen and are set on the outside. Let cool on cooling rack for 10 minutes before transferring from baking sheet.

I have discovered a new-to-me baking blog, and I’m having a bit of a love affair with it. Joy the Baker is charming and funny, very creative and dabbles in vegan baking from time to time.

As a whole, I rarely use other people’s recipes for baking, but while cruising on her site last weekend, I decided to make her vegan pumpkin bread. And can you believe, I didn’t put walnuts in! Me, avoiding quick bread debris! It wasn’t for lack of trying, alas I was out of walnuts. Plus, I decided to make muffins and add a streusel topping with pumpkin seeds, which trumps walnuts any day. The only other modifications I made was lowering the sugar a bit (to 2 cups sweetener, total) and lowered the oil to 2/3 cup, substituting hemp milk for the other 1/3. The muffins I normally make are lower fat and sugar than these, and they tend to taste like it, too. 😉 Not that it’s a bad thing, I love my muffins, but these were decadent, borderline-cupcake muffins and quite lovely in their own right.

Josie acted as my muffin packaging supervisor. Jumbo muffins, FTW!

This time of year, my love of pumpkin runs wild. I want to bake everything with it, just seeing its brilliant orange color when I open the can (yes, I’m too lazy to make my own pumpkin puree) makes me giddy. With all of my pumpkin baking lately, I had a lone bit sitting in the fridge, waiting to be used… but in what?

I hadn’t planned to make Pumpkin Pasties as part of my Harry Potter food adventure, as it’s already been done, but alas, I read The Sorcerer’s Stone on Sunday and was inspired by Harry’s first trip to Hogwarts.

In addition, I received a frog chocolate mold for Christmas last year, so last night I hopped aboard the Hogwarts Express and got to it!

But wait, what’s a pasty? While not entirely uncommon in the States, this treat is definitely not a household name. Before wardrobe malfunctions, microwaves and Jim Gaffigan, there were pasties, the British/UK ancestor to the Hot Pocket. I say that in jest, of course, because pasties are delicious and Hot Pockets are not only not vegan, but can also cause some unpleasant side effects. Pasties can be sweet or savory and are basically handheld meals or dessert, encased in a flaky pastry crust. They are usually a half circle, but I made mine smaller and circular because I thought it would look cute. For Jim’s sake, I added a bit of glaze, as well.

*Note the chocolate frog in the background! Filled with peanut butter, of course!

In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cornstarch. Add the spices and mix then add the pumpkin and combine until well incorporated. Roll out the pie crust and cut into 12 rounds, using a biscuit cutter or the mouth of a drinking glass. Scoop the pumpkin filling into the center of 6 of the rounds (I used a cookie scoop and it worked perfectly). Then top with the top crust and seal edges, using water if needed. Cut a tiny hole to vent and bake for 13-15 minutes, or until edges are golden.

Let pasties cool and eat plain or if you or a loved one has a glaze addiction, whip up a little with some maple extract, if you have it, and top each pasty.

Okay, HP fans! Here is another Harry Potter themed treat that Potterheads and Potterhaters alike will love to eat.

Before I get going, I wanted to draw some attention to this awesome vegan Harry Potter blog: Dumbledore’s Vegan Army. Fun stuff!

So, first, I wanted to work with that Trader Joe’s peanut flour again, in a more conventional setting. Since posting those gluten-free cookies, I have been getting a lot of blog traffic from people who are looking for things to use it in. I’m guessing that for most of those people, vegan, gluten-free cookies aren’t exactly what they’re looking for. 🙂

Second… I wanted to make Horcrux Cakes, another brilliant title suggested by Alec, my littlest brother. For those of you who don’t know what a horcrux is, it’s a regular object that has a fragment of a witch or wizard’s soul in it, in effect giving them immortality, so long as the object exists. The more horcruxes you have, the better chance you have of existing for all eternity. But being that Voldemort is the last person we’d want living forever, I had to ask myself, what or who would I want to live forever?

In a small bowl, combine the flour(s), sugar, baking powder and soda and salt. In a large bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the banana, peanut butter and oil. Whisk the wet ingredients until well mixed then add the milk and whisk to combine.

In a small bowl, combine the remaining 3 tbsp of banana and the chopped chocolate and combine. Set aside.

Add the dry ingredients to the banana/pb mixture in two batches, until just combined. Scoop a heaping tablespoon of the batter into the bottom of each cup and put a small scoop of the banana/chocolate mixture in the center of each cup.

Top each cup with the remaining batter, being mindful to seal in the center. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden (toothpick test won’t work, obviously). Let cakes cool on rack for 15 minutes before loosening and removing from the tins.

Top cooled cakes with peanut butter icing or melted chocolate (or both!). To make PB icing, combine 1 tbsp. peanut butter, 1 teas. milk and 1/2 cup powdered sugar and blend until smooth. Scoop into the corner of a sandwich bag, twist and snip of a tinny bit of the corner to pipe onto cakes. Do the same with melted chocolate, if you want.

To mark the occasion, I will be posting some HP inspired treats from the book series. I may end up creating some of the goods eaten by our fearless trio in the books, but many of the ideas I have are spin-offs from the saga. Like this one, the name of which was created by my HP-lovin’ littlest brother, Alec.

These spiced gingerbread scones, speckled with blood-red Sorcerer’s Stone like cranberries, are the perfect treat to boost your energy before a night time prowl around Hogwarts in your invisibility cloak. Or, you know, a nice pick-me-up with a cup of tea while you read HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the 8th time in your sweats. The colors almost mirror the gold and scarlet colors of the Gryffindor house. Coincidence?

In a small bowl or the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the margarine in chunks and blend in until the mixture resembles a coarse sand. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, molasses and vinegar and whisk to blend. Add the vinegar and let sit for a minute before adding to the dry mixture. Mix the dough with a firm spatula or get your (clean) hands dirty and mix a uniform dough begins to come together. Gently mix in the cranberries.

Shape dough into a 9- 10 inch disc on the prepared cookie sheet. Top with a sprinkle of the coarse sugar. Score the scones into 8 wedges but do not separate.

Bake for 18-21 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges. Let cool on cooling rack for 10 minutes before separating with a knife.